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Published: March 2nd 2007
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Aiming for Lebanon
Looking down the barrel of a gun...will there ever be peace? Od rega
(hold on a minute). Apparently my Hebrew is much more limited than I thought it was. Not that I was anywhere near fluent anyways, but holy shit.
Let's just put it this way. If someone is speaking to me, like my
super nice hamorah
(female teacher) and goes slowly enough, I can grasp the basic meaning. However....and this is where the big however plays in, my reading and writing
sucks. As in by the time I'm done actually phonetically sounding it out like some deaf person and then trying to translate, my homorah is wayyyyy onto the next subject. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights when she calls on me to read. I just freeze and go "Oh shit. Ani lo bevakasha!"
(Not me please!) After playing musical ulpan, I finally decided to suck it up and go back to the medical ulpan which is what I'm currently in. The first day of medical ulpan, my Sunday and your Saturday night, I just kept going "what in the hell did I just get myself into?" So halfway through the class, I asked if I should switch down to the lower level. The director warned
Our Hearts Lay Here...
Welcome to the most holiest place for Jews. Kotel/Western Wall/Wailing Wall...whatever you want to call it. me that she thought that class would be too easy for me and after an excruciating 3 hours of it, I discovered she was right. I felt like I was back in kindergarten saying my numbers 1-10, I was born in blah blah, I want water blah blah blah....and so on. I felt like shooting myself.
At least when I'm in the medical ulpan, if I don't know every word, I get the gist of what's going on. When we read a story about an asthmatic man who is trying to pass kidney stones with a blood pressure of 160/100
(ok...so thats an exaggeration) I at least get that. Medical terminology and emergency related health things make sense to me. I feel at home, even though the letters are
completely different and the sounds are no where near what American English sounds like.
Which...duh.
I didn't expect that, but let me tell you. You come here and try this. To say I'm throwing myself in is an understatement....
But living here is natural. I may not get everything everyone says to me, but when they're not speaking english to me, I have never felt
Stupid Lizard!
I ran around this bus for 10 minutes looking like a moron to catch a picture of this lizard. Enjoy the fruits of my labor. more at home in my life. Have you ever had that feeling that your home is not really your home before? As in you have this idea of what home really is, but it doesn't feel that way to you sometimes?
That...is what I felt in the Poconos. Of course it was my home, and I grew up there and I have made amazing friends who I miss dearly, and yes it was familiar. But I never really fit in. Not in the way I do here.
(My fire department is of course somewhat of an exception...more on that some other time) There, I would wake up and just go through the motions. I knew what to do, when to do it, and could communicate my basic wants and needs, but I always felt like I should have been somewhere else. The Poconos have a way of sucking some people in and they never leave. Not that that's bad...for some people it's really good and they don't mind, but I couldn't stay. I felt like I had to be somewhere else, and for right now that place is here in Israel.
I don't ever expect anyone
I know how you feel....
Trust me, I'm not a morning person either buddy! to actually understand why I moved here; hell people have even got into arguments over it with me, but what I do expect is for people to support me and just try to be happy for me.
I wake up everyday since I landed here and I still have that awe where I say "Wow. I really live here." and I just smile. My bank manager Ika, just kept saying "You smile so much...I love it!" and it's true. I feel like a giddy kid just staring wide eyed at the world and is ready to take it on and claps giddily (is that even a word?) whenever something happens. Perhaps some Israeli's think I'm mentally challenged, because I have gotten those looks like "what is her deal?" but you know what?
I don't care. If I'm going to make an honest go of this place, I have to just roll with the flow, language barrier or not. I have to have patience. Israel definitely tests that...which speaking of....Israel loves their strikes. I swear every other week or month, there is a strike. This particular one which is about to annoy me is the one for Misrad HaKlita
(Ministry of Absorption for Immigrants). Now why does this bother me? Well see, there's this thing called sal klita
(absorption basket ie. my Israeli money). Now sal klita is this really cool thing that Israel gives to me because I moved here. It's a monthly stipend. Not much, but hey, free money is free money.
So anyways...I have to go to Misrad HaKlita to tell them about my bank account and show them I had my bank sign it and please start directly depositing it into my bank account bevakasha. Not only did I have to pull teeth to even get an appointment, which happens to be tomorrow, but now I hear they may strike. I have to check in the morning to see if this is true or not. Strikes here only last a day to a week, but my dilema is, I'm running out of cash on hand and am dipping into my savings.
Not cool. So we shall see.
Whats the word of my life here in Israel??? Oh that's right....
PATIENCE. So to leave off...enjoy some more pictures. I am off to work and to study my ivrit
(Hebrew) and hopefully hear from Keron again. Cause wow. He's hot.
Lehitraot!
(See you later!)
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